August 13, 2012

The role of role models in a country's sports success is a curious one. For example, it is regularly explained that Korean lady golfer Se Ri Pak's victory in the U.S. Women's Open in 1998 at Blackwolf Run set off South Korean dominance in women's golf. Presumably, that's true, but the thought, "I hope I grow up to be just like Se Ri Pak" doesn't strike me as hugely galvanizing. But I guess I'm missing something.

On the other hand, there are the role models without followers. When tennis on TV suddenly became wildly popular in the early 1970s, one of the prominent names was dashing Indian sportsman Vijay Amritraj. He never won a Grand Slam tournament, but he won some tour events, and he played many a hard-fought match in the Grand Slam against legends like Laver, Rosewall, Borg, Connors, and McEnroe. (Here are video highlights of his five set victory over Bjorn Borg in the 1974 U.S. Open.)

He had a long, fun career as captain of India's not-bad Davis Cup team, and was a regular on the international celebrity circuit, even appearing in a James Bond movie. He generally gave the impression that he was having a blast. I presumed there would be more like him in the future. Obviously, most Indians are too poor for sports, but the top 2 or 3 percent in India are as numerous as the entire population of Australia, so it hardly seemed unlikely 39 years ago that there would be more well-known Indian tennis players following Amritraj and his brother.

Recently, Amritraj said ESPN on why there aren't many prominent Indian athletes four decades after he made his mark: "Indians mature late physically and early mentally while people in the West mature early physically and late mentally."

I don't know how true that is, but it does fit with the career of Vijay Singh, the Indian golfer from Fiji, who pushed Tiger Woods out of #1 in 2004-2005, when in his 40s. Singh won more PGA tournaments after his 40th birthday than Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus combined.

146 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Indians are good at kabaddi:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_in_India#Kabaddi

"Kabaddi is the national sport of India. It is one of the most popular sports in India, played mainly among people in villages. It is regarded as a team-contact sport as a recreational form of combat training. Two teams occupy opposite halves of a small field and take turns sending a raider into the other half, in order to win points by tagging/wrestling members of the opposing team; the raider then tries to return to his own half while holding his breath and chanting "kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi" during the whole raid. India has taken part in four Asian Games in kabaddi, and won gold in all of them."

Surely, Amrittraj is describing the well known biological phenomenom of neotony, in which species hang on to the foetal condition into adulthood (as an aside baby chimps more closely resemble adult humans than adult chimps do). If a population 'matures mentally' later than another population, it implies that the first population is more neotonous,in terms of brain and nervous sysytem development, than the last population. This further implies that the brain undergoes further development in the extended childhood,, in that it is 'breaks free' of ancestral tight skull restraints.

On the point of Indians 'maturing physically later' - granted India (particularly in the northern Aryan states) does has its share of big, strong, healthy, powerful men, but the majority of the indian population resemble the pre-Aryan susbstratum of the population - undersized, weedy and physically weak and incapable of prolonged physical exertion. Infany mortality - mainly due to low birth weight, is rife in India. Likewise Indians are prone to develope diabetes type 2 in early middle age. They are also prone to die young with heart disease. The suspicion is that in general, Indians have evolved to breed fast and die young under conditions of heavy population competition and high disease burden. By contrast, yer typical chunky, beefy north European Swede or German evolved to hack down forests and tame the frozen, unforgiving earth.

The society as a whole in India does not have a culture of participating in sports. almost 80% of the population cannot play a single sport!

some of Indias international sporting medallists are living a life of penury.

so imagine the fate of those who are also rans.

I also wonder if there is a genetic link here. As the cliamte here supports and assists in human propogation, unlike in the west where the harsh winters ensure survival of the fittest, are we indians a little less sporty.

It's difficult to discuss Indian sports without mentioning cricket. It is by far their most popular sport and Indians do very well on the international stage (especially after they brought in a foriegn coach!)

Love Amritraj. He was in the first Bond movie I ever saw ("Octopussy") while a strapping young lad of 6 or so. They even squeezed his tennis past into his role (a little, anyway). Eveytime I think of Indians in tennis I think of him.

"On the point of Indians 'maturing physically later' - granted India (particularly in the northern Aryan states) does has its share of big, strong, healthy, powerful men, but the majority of the indian population resemble the pre-Aryan susbstratum of the population - undersized, weedy and physically weak and incapable of prolonged physical exertion."

Actually, its the scrawny guys who do best with prolonged physical exertion. Most farmers the world over are wiry. Same goes for marathon runners vs. sprinters.

"That describes the majority of aryan north Indians as well. Malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, insanitary living conditions are to blame."

Yes, it also describes a lot of the poorer urban English at the beginning of the 20th century - see Jack London's 'People of the Abyss'. Once again, malnutrition and an unhealthy environment were the major causes.

The bit about Indians being 'incapable of prolonged physical exertion' does beg the question of what coolie labour was all about, or who does the agricultural work in India.

By the way Vijay Amritraj is a christian and he did inspire at least a couple other Indians, who made it to #1 in the Tennis doubles rankings: Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati both of whom are christians as well.

Just came back from Northern India. The place is awash in large-bodied, muscular types who one suspects would make fine atheletes and warriros. Remember, the foot soldiers of the British Empire were Indians, most often Sikhs or Punjabis.

As for the smaller lower class types, a large proportion of them have fantastic muscular development with very little body fat, a result of little food and lots of hard labour. While probably physically inferior to the other type, they are still infinitely more fit than the average portly Westerner.

At the end of the day India has many impressive physical types as well as many less impressive ones - in comparison to the West, I'd say India is physically no less impressive than say a country like Britain or France, with perhaps more muscular physiques because of less food and more hard labour. Compared to, say, Holland, Germany, Scandinavian countries, India does not have as many impressively physical types. But then, Britain seems to have done fine.

It's probably simply a question of priorities. The Indians simply don't really care about sports all that much, and are not very organized and disciplined, so don't have the motivation or the organization and discipline needed to produce winners.

I have witnessed physical laborers eat non nutritous food and work very hard in harsh Sun, I guess they are conditioned to it. Poor people in the South eat a millet called "Raagi" lot of strength giving protein in it.

Since Kim became pixie queen in figure skating 2 years ago, Koreans girls haven't entered the sport at noticeably higher rates either here or in Korea. However Chinese-American girls are still being pushed into the sport by their moms en masse with dreams of becoming the next Kwan. Not sure what the difference is, but it's cultural.

Are most Indians aggressively competitive? Leaving aside the physical requirements of sport for a moment, there is also the psychological aspect of wanting to beat the others. India has such a huge population that there should be some athletes among the outliers. But what about the extreme drive to train and compete?

You only get sports in cultures that like to pit men against each other in physical conflict. Also, you need a culture that appreciates the Veblen concept of conspicuous leisure.

I remember reading an anecdote about wealthy British colonists playing lawn tennis in Indian heat during the height of their Victorian Empire. Of course they were sweating, and both probably at times were frustrated with poor shots.

The Indian servants observed this exertion and wondered, "why don't they sit in the shade and let us coolies play in the heat?"

The population of whites is 82.9%, of blacks it is 12.6%, and other is 4.5%. The homicide rates for each group are: 4.5 for whites, 34.4 for blacks, and 4.1 for other (1980-2008 DOJ stats). Now, (.829 * 4.5) + (.126 * 34.4) + (.044 * 4.1) = 3.7305 + 4.3344 + 0.1804 = 8.2453

4.3344 of 8.2453 = 52.5%

Blacks are responsible for 52.5% of an average US homicide rate of 8.2453.

Maybe Indian athletics has to be understood in terms of post-imperialism, diversity, caste system, localism, spiritual culture, etc.

1. Post-imperialism. Though Indian elites grew nationalistic and drove out the British, the elite culture remained linked to the West. Thus, if all Chinese use Chinese to communicate, the favored language of Indian elites have been English. Colleges in India are taught in English than in Hindi. So, it's no wonder that the great star of Indian athletics specialized in tennis(than elephant head-butting or messing-with-cobra-and-getting-bit-to-death), which used to be a white elite game--before the Williams sistaz done foul up its image. Indian elites look to and aspire to be like elites of the West. They feel little genuine amity with the masses of India.

2. Part of the reason for the lack of unity and trust among elites and the masses could be the legacy of the caste system. In the past, being part of the elite used to mean hogging Brahmanism. Today, it means being part of the global elite class(as promoted by the likes of Thomas Friedman). World may be flat for elitists but it's a mountain for the lower masses(and the same is happening in the US, with rich getting richer and middle growing smaller--and with rising diversity, there will be an expanding population of underclass Hispanics and blacks.)

3. But another reason for lack of national unity is diversity. China is diverse too in some cultural sense, but most Chinese 'look alike' and share the idea of 'China as ancient middle kingdom civilization'. Racially, culturally, and historically, China developed under greater isolation than India, which was often battered by outsiders such as Aryans(if the Aryan invasion theory is true), Persians, Grooks, Mughals, and Brits. Because of the wild mix that is India--scholars say there would have been no 'India' if not for the unifying influence of British imperialism with its effective governance, controls, and railroad building--, India has been more of a national idea than a national, cultural, or historical reality. When a Chinese elite member looks at the Chinese people, he immediately thinks, 'they my peepal'. But when an Indian elite looks at the Indian masses, he thinks, 'what a stinkpot of stew not even worthy for the rat god.' There are lots of Muslims in India. Hinduism is dominant but Hinduism has never been a truly system-ized religion, which is why Hindu nationalists rely more on the politics to unite the flock than on Hindu tenets, which is wildly diverse and contradictory. All Muslims believe mainly in Allah and Muhammad as Allah's prophet. But one Hindu sect could be into Krishna, another could be into monkey gods, another could be into rat gods, another could be maggot gods for all I know. So, hinduism is not a very good unifying religion. Also, Hinduism retains its nature paganism, so each local sect doesn't just believe in the -ism but sees his locality as a sacred place for Hindus. So, there are like 1000s of Israels in India. (Israel is holy land to Jews, and it's like each locality is specially sacred to the Hindus of that place. The Ganges notwithstanding, there is no single holy place for Hindus as Mecca is for Muslims.)

Also, a good number of Indian elites are not even Hindu. They could be Christian and Westernized, Persian and Zoroastrian, Muslim, etc. So, there isn't even a unified elite like there was in America(where Wasps used to rule and then were replaced by dominant Jews). With such diversity, it's harder to Indians to develop a national spirit in anything.

4. Related to diversity is localism. Due to the wild divisions, Indians rely more on localism than nationalism. Thus, for most Indians, their village is their world. And each locality is vastly different from the locality of another. One worships monkeys, another worships rats. One may be communist, another may be extreme Hindu. One may have light skinned folks, one may have black tamils. Of course, localism is also the result of lack of development. India has been behind in communications, roads, and etc. compared to the West and even China(which in recent yrs built lots of infrastructure).

5. Then there is spiritual culture that said reality is all an illusion and that truth is to be found in passivism than activism. A culture that worships yogis is likely to be less sports obsessed than one that worships heroes. India gave us Gandhi. One might say MLK was like Gandhi, but MLK was just pulling a stunt to fool dumbass whitey.

Christianity has been pro-peace but it never conquered the Roman warrior spirit(indeed it was incorporated in it) and never fully tamed the tribal barbarian European heart. Also, Jesus was very activist in His mission on Earth. He didn't fight back but He didn't go off into a hole like a yogi and just meditate. He felt He had to put Himself on the frontline and get whupped real bad and triumph over it. There is a culture of pain in India, but it tends to be more solipsistic. It'll have some yogi choosing to stand on a cactus to the point where he feels no pain. Not as powerful or inspiring as the Crucifixion. Imagine if Jesus had chosen to go off to some spot and sit on a cactus. Can you imagine a church where the idol is some figure planting his arse on a cactus patch?

"Amritraj himself, if I recall correctly, was a smooth player but seemed to lack burst speed that kept him from reaching the top along with Connors, Borg, even a little below like Orentes, Vilas."

Something I've noticed about all of the Indian men I've known is that their physical speed/reaction time is a little bit slower than others. Most of the Indians I've known played some sport, but big/little, heavy/scrawny, smart/dumb (not that I've known many of the latter) I've never known an Indian man (or woman) who seemed especially quick on his feet. Speed and reaction time are critical in almost any Olympic event.

"A culture that worships yogis is likely to be less sports obsessed than one that worships heroes. India gave us Gandhi. One might say MLK was like Gandhi, but MLK was just pulling a stunt to fool dumbass whitey.

Christianity has been pro-peace but it never conquered the Roman warrior spirit(indeed it was incorporated in it) and never fully tamed the tribal barbarian European heart. Also, Jesus was very activist in His mission on Earth. He didn't fight back but He didn't go off into a hole like a yogi and just meditate. He felt He had to put Himself on the frontline and get whupped real bad and triumph over it. There is a culture of pain in India, but it tends to be more solipsistic. It'll have some yogi choosing to stand on a cactus to the point where he feels no pain. Not as powerful or inspiring as the Crucifixion. Imagine if Jesus had chosen to go off to some spot and sit on a cactus. Can you imagine a church where the idol is some figure planting his arse on a cactus patch? "

So much misinformation,so little time!But Ill do my best!

I wonder if Westerners ever ask the question that if Indians were so weak ,timid and otherwordly then why did so many martial arts,kings,warriors,generals and dynasties arise out of a culture which defeated Persian,Greek,Bactrian,Huns,Scythians pretty handily.And Muslims too....eventually!

Indians invented Kalaripayattu,considered one of the more deadliest martial arts and a distant ancestor of Kung Fu via the (South) Indian monk Bodhidharma who set up the Shaolin tradition.

As for Gandhi, he was one screwed up dude.He espoused pacifism but he supported the British war efforts against the Boers while a lawyer in South Africa and even earned distinction for his performance as a stretcher bearer.

He supported British efforts in both the world wars while his hot headed 2nd in command had other ideas- he started the Indian National Army with the ill concieved strategy of an alliance with Japan for an invasion of India from the North East.

As for Indians being weak and scrawny, that is partially true today but remember the average height of a British soldier in the 1800s was 5'6" (remember the height difference between boys entering Eton and provincial schools was almost 9 inches!)and and in India they were quite impressed with lower caste Tamils and her physical abilities-so much so that South Indians composed the bulk of the East India Companys militia.

I dont know where you got the idea that Hindu god kings didnt fight back.The most famous are Rama and Krishna known for their prowess on the battlefield and their taming of the Northwestern frontier.One of the ancestors of Rama called Sagara according to the Ramayana had defeated the ancestors of Iranians,Afghans and Arabs and as a humiliation, he ordered them to cut their hair and mustaches and keep beards.

And btw yogis themselves were accomplished martial artists similar to Chinese Taoist sages- still waters run deep.The Naga sadhus are still a formidable fighting people!Despite their obvious Hindu background, they often fought for Muslim kings sometimes against Hindus.

All Muslims believe mainly in Allah and Muhammad as Allah's prophet. But one Hindu sect could be into Krishna, another could be into monkey gods, another could be into rat gods, another could be maggot gods for all I know.

You obviously know little.There are no maggot or rat gods, though there is indeed a monkey God(Hanuman)."

Its amazing how people who worship a corpse nailed to a two by four and indulge with ritualistic cannibalism at their place of worship all the while believing their physically resurrected lord is somewhere floating up there like an astronaut get snippy about other religions!

" So, hinduism is not a very good unifying religion. Also, Hinduism retains its nature paganism, so each local sect doesn't just believe in the -ism but sees his locality as a sacred place for Hindus. So, there are like 1000s of Israels in India. (Israel is holy land to Jews, and it's like each locality is specially sacred to the Hindus of that place. The Ganges notwithstanding, there is no single holy place for Hindus as Mecca is for Muslims.) "

The ancient sages since the Vedas had made a point of deemphasising political unity to the advantage or religious pluralism.This system had its drawbacks but it did spare some of the more charming Biblical customs like holy war(be it Crusades or Jihad its all completely insane to us),Inquisition,Devil,weird obsessions with hell and demons not to intolerant theocracies.Of which the Englightenment was a welcome though belated relief.The damage had already been done to Europe.U.S is another matter though

"It is by far their most popular sport and Indians do very well on the international stage"

Indians don't do as well on the away stage in cricket as well as they do at home. They have often been called "flat track bullies" for the pitches prepared in India usually lower on bounce and swing(of the ball) and their bastmen rack up huge scores against even better bowling teams.

"Cricket is the #1 sport in India yet India has never dominated cricket the way the Caribbean/West Indies and Australia have in turn."

The perennial problem of Indian cricket team has been the dearth of top-tier fast bowlers. Fast bowlers are the taller and stronger sportsmen in a cricket team, fast bowling is the most physically intensive role in cricket and thus most injury-prone.

West Indies and Australia used to have world-best combination of fast bowlers during their (undisputed)stay on the top.Pakistan also produces high-quality fast bowlers, but they are usually let down by their inferior batting compared to the former two when they are not playing at home.

"Then there is spiritual culture that said reality is all an illusion and that truth is to be found in passivism than activism."

The spiritual sometimes arises from the physical. I don't know how much testosterone Indians have on average compared to other populations, but there is a pattern:

The recurrent theme of passive, pacifist ideologies: vegetarianism in Hinduism; Buddhism; Gandhi. Yes, I know that Buddhism is now rare in India, but it originated there.

A long history of foreign rule: Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Mughals, Brits. Very little history of raiding, conquering or governing other peoples. Hindus had some influence in SE Asia before being thrown out of most of it by Arab Muslims.

Almost no interest in sports. Poverty cannot serve as a blanket excuse. Look at Kenya and Ethiopia. And actually, socially India isn't enormously different from Brazil: poor masses, a wealthy and intelligent elite that has little connection with those masses. Brazil is very active in sports.

General timidity. This applies to Pakistanis and Indian Christians I've known, so it can't all be blamed on Hindu vegetarianism. Feminists imagine Indian women as oppressed, but I have a feeling that this is just another sign of feminism's craziness: a lot of the Indian men I've known were actually henpecked. In the Middle East Islam's conservatism is backed up by Arab machismo. I haven't seen any machismo in Indians.

By the way Vijay Amritraj is a christian and he did inspire at least a couple other Indians, who made it to #1 in the Tennis doubles rankings: Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati both of whom are christians as well."

Yes and all of them are South Indians who were alternately considered martial and non martial by the British depending on the formers loyalty to the East India company

I also wonder if there is a genetic link here. As the cliamte here supports and assists in human propogation, unlike in the west where the harsh winters ensure survival of the fittest, are we indians a little less sporty"

LOL! Obviously this explains why West Africans are the least athletic people I suppose

Katherine Mayo, in her 1920s book 'Mother India' includes a passage in which an anonymous senior League of Nations high ranking medical official berates the British for 'protecting the Indians' and 'stopping a more virile and manly race from the north coming down and replacing them'.

The english as a group are a robust race, unlike indians. They wouldn't have conquered India if they were as scrawny and timid as the natives.

I just read the three Indian novels in the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell. These are written from the viewpoint of the common soldier in battle. Cornwell in effect explains why the Brits won the Mysore Wars. It wasn't because they were just taller and huskier than the natives. Simple size did have an effect in certain battles, especially by the Scots who wore those big bear skin hats. They did indeed scare the Indians. More important than size however was the Brit's greater acceptance of casualties. The Brits had stronger ties to their regiments.

Cornwell makes the case that the critical factor was the superiority of British infantry. This was in the period before breach loading rifles. The Baker musket was a muzzle loading smooth bore. The Brits were drilled to load and fire three rounds a minute. They held this same fire rate superiority over the French or any other army in the world.

A smooth bore musket is only accurate up to about 50 yards. This means that to be effective you had to march right up to the enemy and fire in mass volleys. Marksmanship wasn't that important but discipline was. The Brits were long service term professionals who practiced maneuver in the face of the enemy. They could go from line to square and back again as ordered. They routinely beat larger armies throughout this whole period.

Wellington was a military genius of course but leadership itself was not all that critical a factor. The Indians often used European officers. Wellington's said his best victory was a Assaye. His opposite commanding officer was a renegade English mercenary. He won because his infantry was better trained. He engaged Indians who had position, numbers, and an excellent artillery. Wellington assumed his men would hold and the Indians would break. He was right although he took huge casualties.

Physical size is important in single combat but almost irrelevant in organized combat. The French at this time were the smallest people in Europe. The average French soldier who under Napoleon beat the whole world was only 5'2".

Similarly when Marius beat the Cimbri and Teutones his Roman infantry were more than half a head shorter. He had to desensitize his legions to sight of the huge Germans but when they took to the field his little Italians chopped up the bigger Germans with out too much trouble.

"They wouldn't have conquered India if they were as scrawny and timid as the natives."

Rum.

Fill the soldiers / sailors with a pint of rum before a battle. Point them at the enemy. Light the fuse. Stand well back.

As to sport i wonder if asians generally are less physically competitive than euros. If so i think it will be the result of being "agriculturalized" for longer as high density farming came to northern europe relatively late - or in other words centuries-since-barbarian.

If so the current difference between India and China might be less to do with any physical differences and more to do with having a more nationalist government or more simply a government with a legacy of the cold war's use of sporting success as a proxy for idealogical uberness.

With a billion people and a space program the Indian government could find and train a bunch of people with the right body type for particular olympic events but they don't seem to care about it and i wonder if the Chinese would if they had a different government.

in India they were quite impressed with lower caste Tamils and her physical abilities-so much so that South Indians composed the bulk of the East India Companys militia.

Lemme guess, you are a lower caste tamil?

The British East India Company ruled Madras and Bengal long before the British ruled all of India, so of course they used the native tamils and bengalis as cannon fodder. But when they expanded to northwest India the brits relegated the tamils and bengalis to non-martial status and favored nepalese gurkhas, punjabi sikhs, muslims etc

Sir, Thank you for posting that link. Borg has been my favorite athlete since (as a ten year old), I watched his Wimbledon final rematch against Connors. Even by current standards, he was extraordinarily quick. I remembered that Armitraj was a tremendously gracious and affable fellow who had a good serve, but I forgot how fluid, elegant, and effortless his groundstrokes were.

Its amazing how people who worship a corpse nailed to a two by four and indulge with ritualistic cannibalism at their place of worship all the while believing their physically resurrected lord is somewhere floating up there like an astronaut get snippy about other religions!

Very much so.

Of course, it's in the nature of religion to be snippy at other religions. But "snippy" can range from simple annoyance to genocide - and the Abramic religions are heavily weighted toward the latter.

It's not enough to be a warrior, and fight all the glorious, glamourous blood-stained battles. Soldiers, and whole armies of them, need to be feed, clothed, sheltered, and supplied with fuel, ammunition, and medical aid. All the boring bureaucratic stuff that makes up the bulk of what a modern army does (and a good deal of what an ancient army did.)

The advantage of the West is not so much in bigger and better warriors, better fitness, better discipline, better weapons, or even better technology but in superior logistics. That may have been true as far back as the Greeks and Romans.

Perhaps it was the moderate and varied terrain of Europe and the ancient Near East that led to good logistical thinking. Europe has the Alps but not the Himalayas, the plains of Normandy to Belarus rather than extreme steppes and deserts.

Hinduism is divided into two sects mainly, Shaiva(followers of Shiva the Destroyer) and Vaishnava(followers of Vishnu the Preserver), there's considerable overlap between the two and without the violence that comes in Shia-Sunni sects. The third of the Trinity, Brahma the Creator has only one major temple to his name.

Other Gods and Goddesses are usually related to the above two(three if you acknowledge Brahma), for example Ganges is often shown as originating from the locks of Shiva, while the monkey god Hanuman is a loyal servant and bodyguard to Rama, who is an earlier avatar of Vishnu than Krishna, and the 'hero' in the Hindu epic Ramayana.

And the rats are 'worshipped' as homage to the Elephant god Ganesha(a rat is his ride!), who actually isn't an Elephant, but only gets an Elephant head and is related to Shiva and his wife Parvati.

I don't know about Indians maturing late physically though. Most Indians (living in the west) tend to go through puberty fairly early on, earlier than whites and East Asians and probably on par with blacks. In my case, I was shaving at 13 and mostly done growing in height by 15-16, and I know a lot of other Indian guys who were similar. I knew a lot of white guys in high school who shot up in height as late as their senior year, but that sort of thing is extremely rare amongst Indians.

North Koreans are poorly nourished and poorer than Indians, yet even they win golds in the Olympics every year.

Indians are just the worst athletes in the world. I think this has to do with the lack of violence and warring in I Dias past. This has probably left Indians with much lower testosterone levels compared to the rest of the world.

Hinduism is about introversion; and being in peace with Nature, strike a balance with nature and lead a moderate life.

Western View is to be extrovert; conqueror and subdue Nature.

Yogi first conquerors his physical domain; then proceeds to conqueror the Mental Domain; then to crack open the Soul plane. A sound Body; Sound Health, A sound Mind; Superb Concentration, Discipline, and hard work to crack open the Soul plane.

Follow the eight limbs of yoga a methodical procedure.

Realizing god greater difficulty than climbing Mount Everest, yet most important pursuit of Human life.

Hindu Gods Kyshatrias in the Physical Domain, True Brahmins in the Spiritual Domain.

True-Brahmanism is only for stellar figures. Only few are true-Brahmins. True-Brahmins rock. One day True-Brahmin will dissolve this Universe in an "Instant".

"North Koreans are poorly nourished and poorer than Indians, yet even they win golds in the Olympics every year.Indians are just the worst athletes in the world. I think this has to do with the lack of violence and warring in I Dias past. This has probably left Indians with much lower testosterone levels compared to the rest of the world."

I'm getting sick of this. Enough of this India-bashing. North Korea wins some medals because of its sicko totalitarian system. The winners are not one of the starving kids but kids chosen from early age and trained 24/7.They are raised differently and fed differently. It's an inhuman system.

If India used a system like China's, it would win more medals because there are lots of Indians who are big, well-built, and Aryan-like. You morgons don't know what you're talking about.

Are you fabulously rich? Do you wanna be loved by a billion people and be the talk of the world?

All you gotta do is use your money to start a sports program in India, and it won't be long before India becomes one of the great powerhouses in the Olympics. Indians will love you for it. The world will talk about you as the man who turned a nation that wins a few silvers and bronzes into a nation that rakes in lots of gold.

Saving African babies is so old and boring. No one cares about it anymore. It's the same old same old. But 'saving' Indian from a sports backwater to an athletic superpower. You will be a hero.

Hey, I'm not bashing south Asians (don't flatter yourselves Indians, there ARE other south Asians out there). I got nothing against them TBH, except when they bring their sociopathic "you owe me a spot in your country" bit into the conversation. I even think their ethnic oversensitivity is kinda cute.

I disagree with Indians maturing later, especially the girls. They all seemed to mature quite early, and get that "skinny-fat" look in their teenage years. Usually takes whites until their 20s to look like that.

Where do you get this? You mean yogis who live on bird doo doo? Your average Hindu is no less under-muscle-toned than a white. If anything, most Hindus are bigger and beefier than Asians, especially Southeast Asians who are a bunch of gimps.

"The US city of Baltimore is turning to immigrants to help reverse its dwindling population.

While several states and cities across the US have instituted strict and sometimes controversial laws - particularly aimed at undocumented aliens - Baltimore is actively inviting immigrant families to settle here without questioning how they came into the country."

Your main point is absolutely correct, however, I can’t help but bristle at so many factual inaccuracies. For example:

“The Baker musket was a muzzle loading smooth bore.

There is no such thing as a Baker musket. The British infantry used the Brown Bess musket. The rifle regiments used the Baker RIFLE, which was, obviously, rifled. It was slower to load and employed for skirmishing and sniping where long range accuracy was important. You can read about the two weapons here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Bess

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_rifle

“A smooth bore musket is only accurate up to about 50 yards.”

I’ve shot Brown Bess replicas and can easily hit a man-sized silhouette target at 75 yards at the rifle range. Over a hundred yards it gets a little dicey. The main reason why people think they’re so inaccurate is that they flinch when the priming charge in the pan goes off. When the main charge goes off a fraction of a second later they’ve pulled off target. Once you get use to the flash and delay they’re not all that inaccurate – although not like a modern rifle mind you. (I’ve also shot a flintlock loaded with shot pellets at clay targets thrown from a trap house and was able to hit most of them once I got used to the flash and delay.) And remember, this is at single targets. When shooting flintlock muskets at bodies of troops, you can get a fair amount of hits out to almost 200 yards.

“The average French soldier who under Napoleon beat the whole world was only 5'2.”

Actually, they averaged 163cm and 50kg (5’4”, 110 lbs.). Their British opponents averaged 169cm and 60kg (5’6.5”, 132 lbs). Officers at the time averaged about 174 cm (5’8.5”) because of better nutrition among the upper classes.

“Similarly when Marius beat the Cimbri and Teutones his Roman infantry were more than half a head shorter. He had to desensitize his legions to sight of the huge Germans...”

From what I’ve read (e.g. Koepke & Baten, Bisel, etc.), this doesn’t appear to be true. Skeletal remains indicate that the average male height of ancient Germanic peoples was between 170 and 173 cm (5’7” to 5’8”). Skeletal remains from Roman Italy indicate that the average male height was around 165cm to 168cm (5’5” to 5’6”). So we’re talking about an average difference of between 1 and 3 inches. Also, while classical authors often remarked that Germanics were tall with long/large limbs, they also tended to regard them as paper tigers lacking stamina after an initial ferocious charge.

The kshatriya(warrior) caste usually has no compunctions eating meat. It's the brahmins who are most anal about vegetarianism.

"Shaiva(followers of Shiva the Destroyer) and Vaishnava(followers of Vishnu the Preserver),"

The ascetic yogis and sadhus are followers of Shiva and rub ash on their bodies like him.Vishnu's incarnations otoh are the reason for the two major festivals of Hindus: Holi and Diwali. His consort Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and hence is worshipped fervently by the merchant classes.You can spot her figurine in almost all business places.

South Asians tend to be low in testosterone and historically have tended to be sedentary. Combine that with widespread malnourishment of the masses and the highly academic focused culture of the affluent elite classes.

for some groups, they genuinely are not highly interested in sports, and the day to day demands of mere survival take precedence. this isn't the case for every person in nigeria, but it certainly is common.

also note the largest african nation in the world cannot produce a 100 meter runner who can go faster than 10.22, in a sport, track & field, which is said to be so open to everyone that it is the most equitable in the world. so yeah, the jamaicans are on drugs.

""The climate makes it really hard to be as active physically in the outdoors as Australians and Californians. So the culture's evolved not to be particularly interested in sports."

What about U.S southerners, white or black? They deal with humid climates and yet still have high rates of participation/success in sports..."

I don't think this is the case for white southerners. I'm not going to NFL.Com or NBA.Com or baseball anything.

But I'd wager a guess that besides the Northeast, and the big empty zone between the Midwest and Rockies they have the lowest number of professional athletes in the major sports.

As a rule white southerners don't go in for track. They don't really play a lot of basketball either past the high school level, most of the white players I've seen in college ball come from the Northeast and Midwest.

Prove me wrong. Pull up some statistics.

I will also say that producing athletes is a money thing now. If you are a kid from North Dakota who possibly could play pro ball, you are starting out at a disadvantage in a lot of ways compared to a kid in Ohio.

From development, to exposure to colleges and an eventual scholarship offer.

Most kids that get football offers for example come from large population centers in general. Another thing I'd like to see someone run some stats on.

Georgia puts out a ton of high school football players that sign college scholarships, but most come from larger cities or big high school teams (mega school districts) in rural areas.

You guessed wrong.Im a "higher caste" Brahmin of Northern lineage, we are supposed to loathe lower caste Tamils.But those of us who know our history know better than that.

The British East India Company ruled Madras and Bengal long before the British ruled all of India, so of course they used the native tamils and bengalis as cannon fodder."

If it was cannon fodder they were using them for the Vellore and 1857 "mutinies" would've occurred long before!When the cause of mutinies was something as trivial(to modern sensibilities) as caste marks and discrimination in pay, it is hard to believe they would be willing to be cannon fodder!Say what one wants about the fighting Brits in India ,using cannon fodder and "leading from behind" wasn't one of them.Scots in particular were very enthusiastic fighters.

"But when they expanded to northwest India the brits relegated the tamils and bengalis to non-martial status and favored nepalese gurkhas, punjabi sikhs, muslims etc"

Yes but why?You don't seem to ask yourself, but then again why bother?! When HBDers make up their minds about the inferiority of one particular community, they don't let pesky things like facts get in their way!Heck it maybe a Sisyphean ordeal but Ill go ahead and drill it in your head anyway- Tamils and other South Indian groups were demartialized because they were the first to rebel against the British.Sikhs and Rajputs did fight against the British but most remained loyal during the 1857 "mutiny".

Muslims are not a monolithic group in India, Mughals,Tipu Sultan,Southern Sultanates and Northwestern states were at odds with each other and therefore some were fighting the Brits and others allied with them.The Hindus Marathas(of mostly South Indian origin) had destroyed most of Mughal power but were unable to consolidate their gains and broke up into rival bickering clans.The British noted that most Muslims saw themselves as a ruling class despite their now pathetic position so decided to placate and humor their claims by embracing their Abrahamic cousins as allies.The exception to this was Afghanistan which was an utterly inept campaign and had more to do with British incompetence than the fabled Pushtun bravery.

Due to climate, 20th Century Californians had huge advantages at a variety of Olympic and other sports: basically everything other than football and ice hockey, maybe even basketball for awhile (as witnessed by UCLA's 1964-1975 success).

Of course, it's in the nature of religion to be snippy at other religions. But "snippy" can range from simple annoyance to genocide - and the Abramic religions are heavily weighted toward the latter."

Actually Hinduism has a live and let live policy- it doesn't believe in conversion (forcible or otherwise to Hinduism) or tormenting others for theirs.

The modern Hindu rights persecution of Muslims and Christians is an anomaly and has socio political rather than religious significance.

To be clear I dont have a beef with Christianity as such, my point was to point that all religions have fantastic beliefs and if someones mocks my religion , he should be be prepared to have his ridiculed..let there should be no err sacred cows!

Christians and Jews have taken criticism in their stride due to numerous factors ,least of which is the spirit of open enquiry of Western civilization.

The main reason I loathe Muslims is that they feel they have the right to criticize other religions but go absolutely postal when someone even mildly questions their tenets.

Poor muscle tone seems pretty much built into south Asians, for whatever that's worth."

Nothing is really "built into anyone", thats the point, most urban Indians have really sedentary lifestyles and eat terrible (nutrition wise) food and disdain exercise.Western sedentary types are more prosperous , more conscious about eating healthy and are more concerned about their physiques.

"I don't think it's about any inherent lack of competitiveness. South Asians seem pretty competitive. Just look at how riled up in threads about them."

They are competitive to be sure but athletic competition is new and strange to them.Contrary to what others believe, Indians in the past fought wars frequently and were considered rather warlike(by Greek and Chinese travelers) but later Hindu sects emphasizing vegetarianism and pacifism did a number on their mindset.

"They're a strange lot. Racially Caucasoid, melanin ranging from Turkic to Negroid, muscle tone (and population density) of east Asians, and the verbal aggression and ethnocentrism of Jews."

Not really all that strange-they are mixed.Much of the ethnocentrism stems from Hinduism being a closed religion to outsiders coupled with the notion that there had been enough mixing.This is where cousin and niece marriages(ugh) common in.

The exception to this was Afghanistan which was an utterly inept campaign and had more to do with British incompetence than the fabled Pushtun bravery.

Wrong. The afghans/pastuns were the toughest opponents the British faced in India, and earned their grudging admiration. Even today the NATO troops led by Anglos from the US and UK are having a tough time keeping the Pashtuns down despite overwhelming military superiority.

There are actually more Anglo troops in Afghanistan today then there ever were in all of India when the British Empire ruled the Indians with consummate ease. I am willing to bet that the same number of soldiers and military equipment that is currently deployed in Afghanistan would be more than enough to to conquer India again.

Actually, they averaged 163cm and 50kg (5’4”, 110 lbs.). Their British opponents averaged 169cm and 60kg (5’6.5”, 132 lbs). Officers at the time averaged about 174 cm (5’8.5”) because of better nutrition among the upper classes.

The reason Imperial measurements are called that is because 5' 2" French was 5' 6" Imperial so Napoleon would have been tall for a Frenchman proving that basing your measurements on a variable like the distance between the tip of a King's nose divided by 36 and also expecting that measurement to equal the length of three barleycorn was none to clever.

Also of interest is that the average height of a working class man at the end Victoria's reign was 5' 0" whereas an officer was 5' 6".

This is a result of Jain and Buddhist influence from whom the Brahmins have borrowed a lot. The original Brahmins of the Vedic Era were animal sacrificers and meat eaters. The holiest scripture of Hinduism, the Vedas, is full of ritual sacrifices: of horses, cows, humans etc

Even in the US, Winters have been most productive from work perspective [ that i sgetting some research done] You are always fresh, and not tired.

Summer heat tires me, just cannot be as productive. Tropics is not good for sports.

India has produced many many many traitors who have sold out their kin; Britishers upon seeking favor from these traitors with inducements as simple as liquor, wh=oul dhang them for treachery against their own people and not to be trusted.

1."Post-imperialism. Though Indian elites grew nationalistic and drove out the British, the elite culture remained linked to the West. Thus, if all Chinese use Chinese to communicate, the favored language of Indian elites have been English. "

The southern states didn't accept Hindi. It was seen as an imposition from the northern states.

2. Don't get what you are trying to say here, besides the warriors vs. priests is a common theme in many empires.

3." But another reason for lack of national unity is diversity."

NSS

And your stupidity about Hindu religion was eviscerated already.

4. see above, and

5."A culture that worships yogis is likely to be less sports obsessed than one that worships heroes. "

You should read up about how Sachin Tendulkar is almost a deity in India.

Punjabis and Sikhs (two overlapping categories) are the only ones who manage to send people to the Olympics. But India can't depend on these guys to go too far because they are few in number in a country of 1.2 billion.

There are 30 million people in Punjab (India) and 20 million Sikhs in India, two largely overlapping populations.

If a culture switchs from the first to the second it takes time for the higher level of violent traits to be reduced to the lower level via the mechanism of an imposed rule of law and the rate of change will vary on how strictly and severely that rule of law is applied.

So invading pastoral raiders - whether muslim or indo-european - or more recently barbarian Anglos - and especially the even more recently pastoral raider Scots, Irish, Scots-Irish and border English - would have a higher frequency of traits useful for violence.

I think most of the distinctions the British made between "martial" and "non-martial" races in India will be explainable in those "centuries since raider culture" terms.

I think the level of physically competitive and aggressive traits will be part of that whole martial thing so i think one of the reasons for inventing sports in the first place was as a way to channel young male aggression in a relatively safe direction so the cultures with the most young male aggression would be the cultures with the most to gain from developing a sporting culture.

If so then relative sporting interest and success among different ethnic groups - in the absence of forced interest as a result of government policy - should mostly correlate with the levels of male on male violence within those same ethnic groups.

I think the other main aspect is...

."The advantage of the West is not so much in bigger and better warriors...but in superior logistics...Perhaps it was the moderate and varied terrain of Europe...that led to good logistical thinking."

Alternatively it's the collective expression of people adapted to thinking ahead for a long winter i.e. logistical advantage as a function of evolution at a higher latitude.

So a mixture of higher levels of traits useful for violence (as a function of relatively late high-density agriculture - mainly because of higher latitude) and a greater logistical aptitude (also a function of higher latitude).

."Its amazing how people who worship a corpse nailed to a two by four"

They're worshipping altruism.

."Hinduism is divided into two sects mainly, Shaiva(followers of Shiva the Destroyer) and Vaishnava(followers of Vishnu the Preserver), there's considerable overlap between the two and without the violence that comes in Shia-Sunni sects. The third of the Trinity, Brahma the Creator has only one major temple to his name."

What is the intermarriage rate between elite WASPs & especially Azkenazi and NE/SE asians? Given Asians' similar value system as well as academic and economic success, these would seem to be natural parings.

The popular per capita mating with these elites seems to track with which group won the most Olympic medals per capital:

Upper class Indian male+middle class euro female is common but I've much less often seen elite Euro+Indian pairings. In fact, I've seen dozens of Indian mixed marriages (even Indian male+NE Asian females which are rare but seem to have more SES-parity) but never an Indian male+Azkenazi female couple.

The Euro women that marry Indian men also seem to be noticibly more Nordic (blond), petite and hyper feminine/traditional than Euro women marrying other Asians. For example, I've seen more outspoken, hard-charging and feminist Euro women married to NE Asian men (although still a minority), but never with an Indian man.

Since Indian-American's are the wealthest, most educated, likely most verbal and perhaps most focused on economic success/class hierarchy of all Asian goups in the US, it's surprising they seem the group most likely to marry "down" SES-wise (eg Indian MD+Euro RN) when they do marry out.

Part of the overall outmarriage rate disparity is that Indian women are extremely race conscious compared to other cultures. Thus, there are far fewer big Euro male/petite Indian female pairing than for other Asians.

Does this imbalance create a Indian husband shortage for Indian women like black women face? Do Indian women also resent petite feminine blond Euros marrying their menfolk?

The elite WASPs and many Azkenazis seem to share a common culture with a emphasis on physical size and athleticism which are considered an integral part of physical beauty and attractiveness. This has disseminated into nearly every elite prep school where most everyone is expected to participate in sports at some level. Even elite liberal arts colleges have astronomical sport participation rates vs state colleges.

No doubt, there are some facts that backup my observations that the elite I've met at top Unis (outside STEM), business and other self-selecting organizations are significantly taller than the average man or woman.

Indians may not be as good in sports as whites, but I bet we'd outsurvive whites at a much higher rate were a global famine to hit. Food security rests on a very fragile equilibrium - so this is certainly a plausible Black Swan event.

I suppose I should reverse my recent policy change. I have been caught out is a number of minor errors. A year ago I would have checked every assertion of fact in Wikipedia before posting. I considered this simple courtesy like spell checking.

But then a few months ago I decided to just post from memory. It was more fun to be spontaneous.

That's why I posted about the Baker musket not the Brown Bess musket. That's how I labeled the Napoleonic French troops as 5'2 whereas the correct figure was 5'4".

Obviously I will have to revert to my former policy. I'm just not accurate enough on the details from memory.

The real dispute in the posting from anonymous is the accuracy of muskets and the height of Germans.

There is a whole literature on accuracy of muskets. If anonymous can really hit a man size target at 75 yards with a musket, he is exceptional. The standard target for 50 yards was not man sized. It was ten feet high. It represented a man on horse back.

I said Germans were "half a head" or more taller. A head is usually considered to be eight inches. Half a head then would be four inches. Anonymous argues for three inches. Whatever.

All ancient Roman and Greek historians commented on the great stature of the Germans. Marius indeed had to train his troops not to fear the bigger Germans.

My point was that military technology and organization were what counted on the battlefield not the size of the troops. Someone had claimed that the reason the British had beaten the Indians was because they were bigger. I think that's wrong.

Christians and Jews have taken criticism in their stride due to numerous factors ,least of which is the spirit of open enquiry of Western civilization.

There is a certain amount of overlap between Christians, Jews, and the West - granted. But the "spirit of open enquiry" is pagan Greek in origin, and has not always lived in harmony with Christianity. The Inquisition has never taken criticism in stride. Modern Western Christians are much better.

The main reason I loathe Muslims is that they feel they have the right to criticize other religions but go absolutely postal when someone even mildly questions their tenets.

Islam seems to collectively lack a working immune system, and knows it. Hence going postal - bombs, and airliners converted into flying bombs. Everything is a threat to Islam. Nobody can be trusted, even other Muslims are always at risk for being "seduced" into western ways*. Even the most foaming-at-the-mouth modern Christian fundamentalists rarely go so far. (But they are dangerous in other, more passive-aggressive, ways.) Perhaps Islam being so new, and so unpracticed at living in a world with othr religions, has not given it a chance to develop an immune system.

The elite WASPs and many Azkenazis seem to share a common culture with a emphasis on physical size and athleticism which are considered an integral part of physical beauty and attractiveness. This has disseminated into nearly every elite prep school where most everyone is expected to participate in sports at some level. Even elite liberal arts colleges have astronomical sport participation rates vs state colleges.

"The advantage of the West is not so much in bigger and better warriors...but in superior logistics...Perhaps it was the moderate and varied terrain of Europe...that led to good logistical thinking."

Alternatively it's the collective expression of people adapted to thinking ahead for a long winter

Could be, but northern Asia also has long winters and cultural emphasis on forward planning. China was no different from India and other southern Asian countries in falling to the West, and having a largely logistical military disadvantage.

Part of the problem could have been the Manchu emperors being Manchu (rather than Han Chinese) and not assimiliating into Han culture even as much as the Normans in England. If the Manchu emperors made the military strong enough to repel foreigners, the military would have overthrown them.

And there's always enigmatic Japan. Although Japanese military logistics were poor by Anglo-American standards.

Punjabis and Sikhs (two overlapping categories) are the only ones who manage to send people to the Olympics. But India can't depend on these guys to go too far because they are few in number in a country of 1.2 billion.

Many if not most of the Indian contingent at the Olympics were non-punjabis. One of the medalists, Mary Kom is a mongoloid tribal from the northeast.

India has 29 million punjabi speakers, Pakistan has 76 million. Pakistan won exactly ZERO medals. There are over 2 million punjabis in the UK with access to the best facilities yet they were conspicuous by their absence in these Olympics.

Wrong, there is a new racial category called Hinjew... My brother in law married an Ashkenazi

Reading comprehension. I said in *my experiences* of several dozen interracial Indian couples, I never knew a single Indian+Ashkenai couple.

I didn't say such combos didn't exist. I just wrote from my experience, the NYTime article and observations by others that the Hinjew rate is far lower than Chewish and whatever you call Jewish-Korean/Japanese mixes.

The rate is also much lower than the higher-SES Indian male+lower SES Euro female parings like MD+RN combination (very common).

Karan Thapar: So then you are agreeing that it is an embarrassing outcome?

Ajay Maken: No, it is not an embarrassing outcome. Let me tell you, India as far as the human development index is concerned, India is 134th in the world. As far as the per capita income is concerned, India is 129th in the world. And as of now, we are 46th in the Olympics.

Ajay Maken: There are only two countries in the world who are better than India in Olympics and a worse human development index.

Ajay Maken: Just let me finish.. I have made an important point. It is not in terms of only population or the total GDP produced. It is the human development index. Because it is afterall, talking about the well-being of the people. It is the per capita income.

Karan Thapar: This is like slap in the face of..

Ajay Maken: No, no that's not what I mean..

Karan Thapar: You are saying we are so badly nutritioned that we can't win..

Ajay Maken: I am saying we are 134th in the world and still if we able to get into 46th-48th. It is a big achievement for our athletes. Of our country.

The actual positive here is that Indians after a decade of boasting about India's "amazing" rise are finally forced to acknowledge they are still near the bottom in per capita income and HDI.

“My point was that military technology and organization were what counted on the battlefield not the size of the troops. Someone had claimed that the reason the British had beaten the Indians was because they were bigger. I think that's wrong.”

Yes, and at the beginning of my post I said that I completely agree with that statement.

“The real dispute in the posting from anonymous is the accuracy of muskets and the height of Germans… There is a whole literature on accuracy of muskets. If anonymous can really hit a man size target at 75 yards with a musket, he is exceptional. The standard target for 50 yards was not man sized. It was ten feet high. It represented a man on horse back. Various modern TV shooting shows have demonstrated musket accuracy. R. Lee Ermey couldn't hit a man sized target beyond fify yards.”

I’m not at all exceptional. I will admit that I was using modern black powder and patches, which would have been a little better than what they had in the early 19th century. However, it would not have made that much of a distance. As you can read in the paper cited in the Wikipedia article, if you shoot a Brown Bess from a bench rest, you get groups of 5” or better at 50 yards. It’s really not all that difficult to hit a man sized target at 75. I saw that TV episode with Ermey. He did what almost everybody does when they first fire a flintlock: he flinched when the priming charge when off and by the time the main charge went off he was off target. I did the same thing the first several times I fired a flintlock. The key is to take aim, squeeze the trigger and then remain still until the main charge goes off. I find it best to close my eyes after taking aim to ignore the flash.

Since Indian-American's are the wealthest, most educated, likely most verbal and perhaps most focused on economic success/class hierarchy of all Asian goups in the US, it's surprising they seem the group most likely to marry "down" SES-wise (eg Indian MD+Euro RN) when they do marry out.

The level of self-praise is embarrassing.

The reasons Indian doctors have to marry "down" is because Indians aren't attractive.

It's not just education and jobs but looks which determine social class.

The beauty and racial difference is too large, so white women from similarly well-off backgrounds will not want them.

There are over 2 million punjabis in the UK with access to the best facilities yet they were conspicuous by their absence in these Olympic

On the other hand the man made the London Games happen, Lord Sebastian Coe, had a punjabi grandfather. The architect of the highly successful London Olympics 2012 is also one of England's greatest Olympic champions having won 2 golds and 2 silvers in 2 successive Olympics in the 1980s.

Also, the Mayor of London where the Games were held has a half-punjabi wife.....

Wrong. The afghans/pastuns were the toughest opponents the British faced in India, and earned their grudging admiration. Even today the NATO troops led by Anglos from the US and UK are having a tough time keeping the Pashtuns down despite overwhelming military superiority. "

The British took quite a while to subdue the Southern Poligars, Tipu Sultan ,not to mention the Sikhs!The Afghanistan campaign was essentially a raid, a very badly planned one based on bad intelligence and lack of knowledge of the terrain.Some weeks ago, Steve posted a beautiful article by Lord MacAulay of how the English viewed Scots, you can cut and paste some of those descriptions and apply it to the Pushtuns.For the post Rosseau British, the Pushtuns were simply their noble savage now that Scots had entered the mainstream via the East India Company!Similary Turks(cultural cousins of Pushtuns via the Turkic/Mongol heritage) were viewed in a similar manner by the Austro Hungarians.

There are actually more Anglo troops in Afghanistan today then there ever were in all of India when the British Empire ruled the Indians with consummate ease. I am willing to bet that the same number of soldiers and military equipment that is currently deployed in Afghanistan would be more than enough to to conquer India again."

Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fabled Pushtun martial abilities but silly tactics by NATO by sub ordinating military victory to nation building,democracy and winning "hearts and minds"

Without U.S support in 80s, Afghans would've gotten the Uzbek treatment for e.g. Rahmatullah Khan Afridi would be Rahmatov Khanonich Afrid

Your claim that that Afghans can invade India is downright comical ,well before India ,Hindus had repelled Pathan invasions handily particularly the Rajputs, Sikhs and Marathas with Maharaja Ranjit singh going as far as conquering Afghanistan- and he never had problems with no "insurgents"!!

Its your reading comprehension skill that is comical. How the heck did you manage to mistake anglo soldiers deployed in Afghanistan for Afghans???"

Oops my bad!You are right.

However I do hope you realize that Indian Army of today is not the squabbling and ignorant rabble of kingdoms and militias which composed the Indian military machine in 1700-1800s!

So while an initial invasion of India by your beloved Anglos may well be successful ,particularly their Special Forces who are far superior to the Indians, the rest of India army which is composed of well trained conventional forces will be in it for the long haul.And Indians don't suffer from the pomo lack of patriotism ,resolve and the advantages of such a large population is that the imagery of body bags which so plagues Western media will have no dent on our morale!It may seem counter intuitive to you HBD types but trust me you will soon pine nostalgically for your experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan compared to this silly fantasy of neo Indian conquest.

Re how Indians ruled by Brits, as stated Indians were foolish(to trust the English were there just for trade not for conquest),backward(military technology and logistics were a joke) and squabbling(even the Marathas who defeated the Mughals broke up into rival bickering clans) though not lacking courage.Divide and rule was the order of the day and it was carried out successfully.

India was ruled less by British might than their mind, most Brits ruled by proxy staying out of the picture altogether.My great grandmother who was born and brought up in a village in Southern India- upon learning that India had received independence on Aug 15th 1947 was shocked to learn that it had been under foreign rule at all!This is not an uncommon anecdote-in the hinterlands -there were too many people who had no clue that their country was rule by foreigners at all.Most of the British were concentrated in the cities except for the occasional tax collector who never really left his premises.The soldiers were Indian,the police was Indian, the tax collectors were Indian as well the civil servants!

Only when there was an increased consciousness of the oppression and discrimination of Indian subordinates did things really flare up in the 1900s

The 1857 revolt is something I don't really consider as a war of independence as their beef(heh) wasn't really with foreign rule as such but insensitivity to the customs of the sepoy.

The jig was up after WWII when the mutiny in the Indian Navy occurred.Around this time during one of the PM debates for election ,perhaps it was the very first time a cat got Churchills tongue when Clement Atlee asked if he could guarantee that Indian armed forces would remain loyal to the Empire!

"Your claim that that Afghans can invade India is downright comical ,well before India ,Hindus had repelled Pathan invasions handily

Your ignorance of your own history is appalling. Bands of afghans have conquered and ruled over north India numerous times. Please educate yourself:"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suri_dynasty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodi_dynasty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrani_Empire

errr..I never denied that Pathans invaded India or had established dynasties.My point was that Indian dynasties weren't always pushovers for the Pushtuns or any other Northern barbarian as white HBDers like to claim.

Furthermore many of these dynasties were invited by local Hindu warlords in their ill conceived schemes of using them as pawns to replace their rivals(not always Muslims)...Doesnt this remind you somewhat of Britons and Saxons?

Prithviraj Chauhan defeated the Muslim ruler Shahabuddin Muhammad Ghori in the First Battle of Tarain in 1191 and set him free as a gesture of mercy. Ghauri attacked for a second time the next year, and Prithviraj was defeated and captured at the Second Battle of Tarain (1192).

The reasons Indian doctors have to marry "down" is because Indians aren't attractive."

LOL Im afraid here I have to part company with you.Thats a quite a blanket opinionated statement !

It's not just education and jobs but looks which determine social class. "

Haha! That would be news to the Turkic rulers of Iran and India who described by various Europeans as quite hideous compared to the rest of the populace.Anyway your point is silly ,a rich man can easily acquire a beautiful bride ,often of a different race if need be,so naturally his offspring would be better looking?

The beauty and racial difference is too large, so white women from similarly well-off backgrounds will not want them. "

Yes and we all know that white women from the upper class are rational,well adjusted people!If I can pull a reverse Whiskey its upper class white men who HATE HATE HATE white women.

Furthermore perhaps Indian doctors have the right idea of marrying a woman from a slightly lower social strata.

Marrying a woman of equal or better education,career or social standing is a recipe for disaster.

Prithviraj Chauhan defeated the Muslim ruler Shahabuddin Muhammad Ghori in the First Battle of Tarain in 1191 and set him free as a gesture of mercy. Ghauri attacked for a second time the next year, and Prithviraj was defeated and captured at the Second Battle of Tarain (1192)."

Yes, though the folk tradition claims it was 17 times that Ghori invaded!

Anyway more fool Prithviraj-it was this combination of Hindu ethics(really naiveté) and Pushtun and Muslim perfidy in general that Muslim rule was as successful as it was in India

I am an Indian and have travelled a lot in Asia and Europe. There is no doubt whatsoever that on average Northern Asians like the Chinese, Japanese etc… are naturally much bigger and athletic than most Indians. Indians living in the extreme north such as Punjabis etc… may be exception to this.As far as Europeans, even the British in their imperial gazetteer observed that the average European was much larger and physically stronger than the average South Asian.Check this video outhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnWvTGX-epsSee how the Indian soldiers are weak and hapless infront of the Chinese soldiers. Worth noting is that the only Indian soldier who put up a good show was the Sikh soldier and even he sucked more than the Chinese. The Indian soldiers had a much weaker build than the East Asians. Thus North East Asians triumph South Asians, Middle Easterners and South East Asians in both physical strength and IQ. No wonder they are going to dominate Asia for a long time to come.

"Anyway more fool Prithviraj-it was this combination of Hindu ethics(really naiveté) and Pushtun and Muslim perfidy in general that Muslim rule was as successful as it was in India...

Furthermore many of these dynasties were invited by local Hindu warlords in their ill conceived schemes of using them as pawns to replace their rivals(not always Muslims)...Doesnt this remind you somewhat of Britons and Saxons?"

These are both examples of less martial groups - i'm not saying that's a bad thing btw as part of being "more martial" is being nastier - in conflict with more martial groups.

The Saxon example is a well known one but you see the same thing over and over again in places like Ancient Egypt with a repeated pattern of hiring mercenaries who then mount a coup and start a dynasty for a while - or China with the various Mongol, Manchu type invasions etc.

."My point was that Indian dynasties weren't always pushovers for the Pushtuns or any other Northern barbarian as white HBDers like to claim."

I think half the ethnic trolling on iSteve is the same individual taking opposing positions.

"People never exaggerate the caliber fierceness of their opponents to make their victories sound more impressive?"

All the ancient writers - regardless of whether they fought them or not - mention that the northern barbs were taller. The interesting part is why.

Also there's an assumption that if they were taller they were beefier too. Howevr i wonder if they were like the Masai - tall but lean? If evolution usually selects for shortness for calorie reasons but for some reason greater height is being selected for among a particular group then wouldn't it be more likely that the compromise would be tall and lean?

Anonymous said...You mean like your morale wasn't dented in the humiliating 1962 border skirmish with China? India was in utter panic. Imagine what a real war would do to a nation of cowards.

The British, Afghans and Turks who easily defeated the natives of India had no respect for the "morale" or fighting abilities of the Indians.

Sure, which is why "south tibet" that the chinese continue to whine about is still in Indian control, as is the Dalai Lama who continues to make speeches. At the end of the day, many more Mongoloids are in Indian control than are Indians in chinese lands. Why don't they do something about it? It's also hilarious as to how the martial chinese had to "negotiate" the return of macao and hong kong from the evil imperials over decades, while the weak, cowardly Indians gave an ultimatum to portugal and walked in to Goa with their weak, cowardly police force, and liberated and unified it with India in scarcely 24 hours.

Also hilarious is how the weak and cowardly Hindus still practice their religion of 4000 years ago, while the afghans, greeks, egyptians, norse, turks, persians, brits, celts, and sundry others have long been culturally subsumed and colonized multiple times over, including all the jew-hating HBD'ers here who follow a semetic religion founded by a palestinian jew nailed to a 2x4 as Van Nostrand eloquently put it!

BTW, as far as afghan military prowess goes, that place is a barren, lifeless desert for the most part. There is no productive industry, or agriculture. It is relatively easy for a set of barbarian thugs from there, with nothing better to do, than to go on a raid to the Indian hinterland to sack and pillage, and many times for the Indians it was just as well to go 50 miles away and not be any worse off for it. On the other hand, subduing a wild desert with no economics to justify it is an exercise in idiocy, which is why noone much has bothered to hold places like afghanistan or mongolia (another god-forsaken place with nothing but extreme temperatures and sand, but lot of barbarian 'invaders'). However, afghans have been invaded and subdued numerous times, and one of the most successful periods was by Indian Maharaja Ranjit Singh who also forced the pashtuns to wear the salwar kameez, a traditionally female Punjabi item of clothing. So much for the 'brave' cross-dressed, boy-loving pashtuns. pastuns invaded by Indians, Russians, Anglos, and now the water carriers for the cowards that are the punjabi-pakistani army. A great legacy indeed!

Indians appear more extroverted, verbal and self-promoters in the salesmenship style of the west (eg US Indian politicians vs NE Asian).

NE Asians are more introverted, mathmatical and stoic. Both have strong values of family, education and material success that mesh with middle class+ whites.

What is surprising is that low Ashkenazi-Indian intermarriage rate vs other NE Asians given they argueably the most similar to Ashkenazis by most metrics (education, income, verbal fluency and agressiveness, political activism, sexual agressiveness (ask any fair single woman whose traveled in India), non-proselytizing religion, deep internal fissures, etc)

The only way I can see NE Asian more like Ashkenazis than Indians is aesthetics, athletics and hewing more to the order of Western civilization and morals.

You mean like your morale wasn't dented in the humiliating 1962 border skirmish with China? India was in utter panic. Imagine what a real war would do to a nation of cowards."

LOL, what makes you think the war with China wasnt a "real war".And when did I claim that morale wasnt damaged in the sorry defeat.

The British, Afghans and Turks who easily defeated the natives of India had no respect for the "morale" or fighting abilities of the Indians.

Indians had defeated the British under Tipu Sultan ,Poligars ,some Maratha wars not to mention the Sikhs.Of course in the end British did win the wars.

We fought the ancestors of these barbarian Turks and Afghans when they were called Huns and Scythians and we defeated their descendants in the Pakistani Army.

I really dont care what such modern day barbarians and their foolish admirers like yourself think of Indian abilities.In fact please keep thinking that-the Pakistanis subscribed wholeheartedly to the martial race theory and therefore decided that defeat of those scrawny Hindus was imminent! The result was a humiliating rout and the loss of Bangladesh!

Oh and btw the last time, the U.S went home crying after a proxy war with China in the 50s so I wouldnt go around bringing China, thank you very much!

Marrying a white nurse is actually marrying up for an Indian doctor since her color trumps his hindu caste or his income"

Maybe among some urban Indians, marrying a white woman is considered a catch, but traditional Indians frown upon such matches.They would sooner have their son marry a dark skinned girl from their own community than be saved the disgrace of mixing their blood with a foreigner.

That said it is a less of a big deal for a Hindu man to marry a white women than for white man to marry an Hindu woman as the wife can be accomadated in the clan since she takes the husbands religion( again this is not encouraged) but since conversion is barred to foreign men ,it is far more tricky for a Hindu girl to marry a white man. Though it does occur every now and then and Indians eventually get used to it as long as the man reveres Indian culture they can be quite accomadating.

So on what basis did you claim that indian morale would be greatly superior to western morale in a war?? The one month 1962 "war" that terrified indians so much was merely a border skirmish compared to the wars that the West and Far East have endured in the 20th century. History shows that hindus are easy pushovers. Nothing has changed.

Yes, please note these are North Indian Brahmins who were descended from Scythians,Huns etc ...they have little to do with the real Vedic Brahmins who can be found now mostly in the South and Bengal.

So funny. Just the other day you acted as if insulted when I guessed that you were a south indian. Now you tell us your grandmother's stories from south India and agree that north indians are traitors to India. :)

“At the end of the day, many more Mongoloids are in Indian control than are Indians in chinese lands. Why don't they do something about it?”

Because the Burmese or the Chinese do not consider the Indian North Easterners and Ladakhis as their own. And these Indian Mongoloid tribes are in India today because the British conquered tham and gave them to India. And India has acted as a colonial power and never given these people the right to secede as most of them want to. The Hindus sneakily conquered Sikkim which was an independent kingdom.

“Yes, please note these are North Indian Brahmins who were descended from Scythians,Huns etc ...they have little to do with the real Vedic Brahmins who can be found now mostly in the South and Bengal.” What non-sense, most of the Bengali Brahmins are themselves descendants of North Indian brahmins. I am a Bengali Brahmin, who is this idiot typing such non-sense.

“A disproportionate number of the latter were imprisoned by the British for their "seditious" activities.”

Bengali brahmins maybe, but not those from South India. Indeed compared to the North, East and the West of British India, Southern India has been quite subdued in their opposition to the British Raj.

Ladhakis and Arunachalis are Tibetans, just like in Tibet. Of-course, regardless of whether the chinese consider them chinese, these people are happy to be in India, and consider themselves Indian. The seccessionist groups are small numbers of tribals here and there who have mostly been silenced anyway. For all the panic that is allegedly the caused in 1962, the fact remains that the little yellow chinamen ran back to their country rather than hold on to any populated Indian territory. It is like playing kabbadi, scurrying across the line to show you can and then scurrying back before someone notices. Tawang and Arunachal Pradesh continue to be held by India. The 'real' Tibetan culture will continue in India, protected by the 'cowardly' 'pushover' Hindus LOL.

India is ranked number 1 right now and has one of the best batting line ups in the world, but for some reason they can't come out with pace bowlers like the West Indies, but West Indies can't come out with any pace bowlers like Pakistan, so it's not like they're the fastest, because the only people on the planet that have had a team that can clock above 100 mph is Pakistan and Australia doesn't have any pace besides Brett Lee and his fastest time was 99 mph, so I think it has to do with role models, plus Pakistan has a lot of narrow alleys with limited space, so spinning the ball wasn't an option for many Pakistani youth, but all the other countries have more open landscapes.

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